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WANT to buy your own branch of the Liberal Party?
No problem. This is how you do it. On Wednesday, May 24, 2000 about eight people involved in a West Perth catering company joined the Liberal Party. They were recruited by a man who worked in the office of a Liberal Senator. The catering company was interested in getting some work from the Liberals. The recruiter said he'd organise the catering jobs if they gave him some memberships. So the business's directors, bookkeeper, functions manager, chef -- even a waitress -- became Liberal Party members for $10 a pop. They never heard from the party again. In fact, when I spoke to one of the partners this week at first he didn't even |
remember being signed up.
"It was just a business deal for us," he said. "We wanted to get some business so we signed the form and paid our $10 each. "The thing that p...es me off is that we didn't get any work out of them, anyway." I jogged his memory about his membership of the party when I described his signature to him. It is one of the few parts of the form that has been filled in. The name of the recruiter doesn't appear, nor does the name of the branch to which the caterers were assigned. And they didn't fill out the annual subscription box, just noted that $10 had been paid for a one-off membership. How such membership forms could get through the party's administration is perplexing. It suggests broad acceptance of branch-stacking. |
But the partner did remember who collected the form. That was Don Randall, the former
member for Swan, who had lost his seat and was then working for Senator Ian Campbell. Mr Randall has since been re-elected to the seat of Canning.
None of the caterers heard from the party again. So how were their memberships used? Party insiders explain that you need 30 members to keep a metropolitan branch constitutional. But you only need five people for a quorum to form a branch committee and at a branch annual general meeting. So the "phantom" members -- because in essence that's what they were -- just kept the branch alive. The branch-stacker gets a bunch of mates -- it can be as few as five, but is usually |
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around 10 for safety -- to form a new branch, rejuvenate one with low numbers or take over one from the enemy camp.
Each branch sends five delegates to the party's divisional council and that body in turn elects the delegates to the State Counci. And that's what this little exercise was all about -- numbers on the State Council. The State Council decides the party's Senate ticket. And the frenzy of activity around May 2000 was all about who got on the Sentate ticket. Now there's a school of thought that the only good reason for keeping political party membership fees low is to make branch-stacking cheaper. Last year the Liberals put up their fees from $10 to $25, but kept the lower rate for |
pensioners. Labor's fees are $35 and $15 for concession holders.
There was a big push at this year's Liberal Party State conference to cut the fees back to $10. It was defeated only after a bitter debate and even then the vote was sent to a secret ballot. As for Don Randall, he maintains he did nothing wrong and was not "directly involved" in signing up members. "As far as phantom members are concerned, 90 per cent of people who became members don't play an active role. And many don't even remember they are members -- it doesn't stick in their mind," he said. All of this makes the words of Prime Minister John Howard to the State conference jar a little. The Liberal Leader was |
criticising the debate in the Labor Party over cutting union voting power from 60 per cent to 50 per cent.
"I thought the defining characteristic of a man or woman's influence on a political party was membership of that party," Mr Howard said. "In the Liberal Party, there are no first and second degree tiers in membership. "If you belong to the membership, to the party, you've got the same rights as any other member. No more, no less." Unless, of course, you count phantom memberships, Prime Minister. Paul Murray hosts the morning program on radio station 882 6PR. Liam Bartlett is overseas on a Churchill Fellowship. [Since returned.] |
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